Once More With Feeling
by cinnamon badge
Summary: [JamesLily] Lily Evans won't go out with James Potter, and she's told him so hundreds of times. But why won't he stop asking her out?


**Author's Note: **I am on a huge James/Lily kick lately. Hence, this little throwaway oneshot.

**Once More With Feeling**

He asked her out again -- what number they were on she wasn't sure, as she had stopped keeping track in their fifth year -- that morning over breakfast. This was coming a matter of hours after his last attempt, which had been the night before, as everyone was heading up to bed.

"Evans," he had called to her, from the other end of the Gryffindor common room. Lily was gathering her books together to go up to her dormitory with Marlene and Dorcas.

She closed her eyes in frustration and exhaustion. "No, Potter," she said preemptively.

Potter, who had been crossing towards her, stopped in his tracks, eyebrows raised. "You don't even know what I'm going to ask," he said.

"Do I look like I'm stupid?" Lily snapped, standing with her books. Marlene and Dorcas slipped away, giggling together. "The answer is still no, Potter, just like it was after Transfiguration, and last night, and during lunch yesterday. I _won't_ go out with you."

"Well, okay," he said, shrugging, "but I actually wanted to know if you'd worked out this month's patrol schedule yet."

Lily groaned. "Oh, bugger," she muttered.

"S'all right, I thought you would've, so I did it," he said, grinning lopsidedly at her. "I made one up and gave it to Vance, and she's already started passing it out to the other prefects."

"But --" Lily blinked in shock. Potter had never taken the initiative like that before, especially not when it came to their Head duties. As he had never been a prefect, he often had no idea what to do. "Did you remember which pairs work together best?"

"Of course," he said, ruffling his hair. "McKinnon and Campbell --"

"And you made sure that you didn't put Meliflua and Prewett together, right?"

Potter's confident look slid from his face. "Er --"

"Oh, _bugger_," she groaned again. "How many times have I told you --"

"That Meliflua's an inbred, narrow-minded git?" he filled in, frowning.

Lily glared at him. "Potter --"

"I'll make it up to you, I promise," he said, hands outstretched before him in a supplicating manner. "If you let me --"

"And here it comes," she said, rolling her eyes and making her way towards the staircase that led up to the girls' dormitories. "Why am I not surprised?"

Potter couldn't take a hint, and followed after her. "There's a Hogsmeade visit two weekends from now --"

"No!" Lily cried, spinning on her heel to stare at him. "How many times must I tell you? No means no Not now, not tomorrow, not ever!"

"Er -- all right, then," he said, smiling sheepishly. He stayed where he was as she marched up to her room.

And now here they were, barely eight hours later, and Potter had tried _again_ to ask her out. Lily was seriously beginning to wonder if he possibly suffered from short-term memory loss, brought on by head trauma inflicted at some earlier point in his life.

"I fixed the patrol schedules," he called down to her while he passed around the platter of scrambled eggs. A few people separated them at the long Gryffindor table. "Meliflua's with Callow, Vance with O'Malley."

"Good," Lily said; then, begrudgingly and with more than a little reluctance, she added, "Thank you, Potter."

It was painful to watch his entire face light up. "No problem, Evans," he said in a rush. Behind his back, Sirius Black was exaggerating his actions and batting his eyes, while Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew snorted into their pumpkin juice. "And hey, now that we've avoided certain death and dismemberment, maybe you'd consider going to Hogsmeade with me?"

Lily looked down at her plate, unable to meet his eyes anymore, while beside her Marlene called to him, "The lovesick puppy act doesn't convince anyone, Potter." The girls around them all laughed, and Potter finally noticed Sirius's impressions and cuffed him over the head. He was grinning self-consciously, the tips of his ears slightly red, but otherwise seemed to be utterly unaffected by yet another rebuff. He simply continued devouring his breakfast.

Marlene nudged her in the ribs with her elbow, grinning. "Thought I'd spare your voice a bit longer," she said, winking at Lily. "We've got oral reports in Arithmancy today, at any rate."

Lily smiled back. "Cheers, Mac."

If she was going to be perfectly honest with herself -- and she always tried to be -- Lily just couldn't understand why Potter insisted on debasing and humiliating himself on a daily basis the way he did. He was one of the most popular boys in their year, perhaps in the whole school, but even the people that liked him had admitted to her that it was hard to watch him when he asked her out for the thousandth time. Who would willingly do such a thing? What on earth could he possibly be getting out of it?

Lily sighed as she poked at her food. Whatever his reasons, he really needed to stop. While at first she had been annoyed, then livid, when he didn't give up, now it was just awkward and uncomfortable. Definitely something she could do without.

Potter left the Great Hall earlier than the rest of the Mauraders, saying he needed to patrol the halls for a bit, and the other three all shouted goodbyes over their shoulders. Thinking that perhaps she could end it, right here and now, Lily also got up and excused herself.

"We'll save you a seat in McGonagall's class," Dorcas promised, and Lily smiled her thanks as she left.

She rehearsed in her head what she would say when she found him, as she climbed up the stairs to the second floor. _I really think you should concentrate more on your Head Boy duties, Potter_, she would say. _We're leaving Hogwarts at the end of this year, and you've got to think about what you're going to do and what N.E.W.T.s you need to pass._

He was already down at the other end of the hall when she reached the second floor landing and rounded the corner. Chin up, determined, Lily picked up her pace to catch up to him. "Potter!"

He turned as though jolted with electricity, eyes wide, and stared at her as she jogged towards him. "Er -- all right, Evans?" he said, trying and failing to sound nonchalant.

"Yeah, all right," she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I just -- wanted to ask you something?"

"Yeah, go ahead." Potter gave her his undivided attention.

And her courage faltered, without warning. He was looking at her strangely, with those gray-brown eyes of his completely focused on her and nothing else. She didn't think he'd ever looked at her like that before, and she _knew_ that him looking at her had never made her heart race like this. "Um..." She shook her head slightly to clear it. "Potter -- I don't think you should ask me out anymore. It's just embarrassing us both now --"

He shrugged. "I'm not embarrassed by it. Frustrated, maybe, but definitely not embarrassed."

Lily's jaw dropped. "You're not?" she said incredulously.

"Should I be?"

"But -- but I turn you down every time!" she cried. "And your mates always make a big joke about it, and everyone around us laughs --"

"I can't control that," he said, shaking his head. "And Sirius and them don't really mean anything by it anyway. If it bothers you, I'll ask them to stop."

"No, Potter --" Lily made an annoyed sound. "I'm asking you to stop asking me out altogether, not to just stop making a scene each time you do."

Potter frowned down at his trainers and scuffed them along the carpet. "Because you're embarrassed, yeah?" he asked quietly.

"Well --" She had not predicted the way this conversation was going at all. "Not so much embarrassed as uncomfortable," she admitted, twisting her fingers together. "You know I'm not going to go out with you -- you've known that for years -- but you just keep asking."

"So you don't think I'm being serious about it," he said, raising his eyes to hers again, and that look was still there, mixed with curiosity. "You think I'm just having a laugh at your expense."

Lily blinked. She had counted on every possibility but that one. "Aren't you?"

He tilted his head to the side. "Is that why you always say no? Because you think I'm not serious?"

"You can't be," she babbled, "you're a prankster, you never take anything --"

The corner of his mouth turned up in an amused grin. "Lily, Lily," he said, and with a start she realized he was using her first name. "Seven years you've known me, and you still've got a lot to learn."

"You mean you --"

"Never, ever give up when I really want something? Yeah."

Lily swallowed. "Merlin," she whispered. This was _definitely_ not how she thought this conversation would go. To think that James Potter, the most popular boy in their year, was actually interested in her and not just trying to push her buttons -- it was beyond comprehension, as was the strange feeling in her middle, as though there were butterflies loose in her stomach.

"Go with me to Hogsmeade?" Potter said, smiling.

"No," Lily replied automatically.

"Oh well," he said, grinning wider. "I'll just have to try again later, won't I? See you in class." With a wave of farewell, he continued on down the hallway, whistling a little and ruffling his hair as he went.

And suddenly, Lily wasn't sure what her answer would be the next time he asked.


End file.
